After a Flood Event

Abstract

This chapter describes common governance challenges and good practices in the recovery phase after a flood event. Initially, all the water needs to be removed, either by flowing away naturally or through pumping out of the area. The area then requires to be cleaned, with any damaged buildings and infrastructure restored.

A common challenge is to make sure that sufficient money is available for recovery. In England as well as Belgium and France, insurance systems are in place. Either as part of the general household insurance such as in England, as part of the risk-fire insurance such as in Belgium, or as part of the private-public Cat Nat system in France. The Netherlands relies on a national compensation fund in case of natural disasters. In England a scheme is in place to compensate local authorities for unexpected costs related to floods.

Maintaining and restoring critical infrastructure, healthcare and other functions is another common challenge in the phase after a flood. In England a specific programme on critical infrastructure was launched that promotes organisations to integrate resilience into their networks to better absorb shocks and recover quicker after a flood event.

Ultimately, after a flood event lessons should be learned to better prepare for the future. In order to learn from the past we can turn to measures such as in England, where independent reviews are organised regarding flood risk management and responses to significant flood events. In Poland, the Millennium floods in 1997 triggered considerable changes in flood risk management resulting in much better preparation and response during the 2010 flood event.

1 Supplementary Electronic Material (S)

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